


no such thing as no standards

by irreputablyyours



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Character Analysis, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Incest, M/M, Multi, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, With apologies to 16th century playwrights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:53:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23727112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irreputablyyours/pseuds/irreputablyyours
Summary: It’s a pretty fucking short list.Or; Dennis, and the lines he hasn’t crossed.
Relationships: Dee Reynolds/Dennis Reynolds, Mac McDonald/Dennis Reynolds
Comments: 4
Kudos: 46





	no such thing as no standards

**Author's Note:**

> god help me.

  1. _a sin to know_



It’s not like Dennis hasn’t _thought_ of it. Of course he’s thought of it. He’s ninety-nine percent sure he could have sex with Dee. It wouldn’t be _easy,_ of course; but still. Possibility. 

Dee isn’t someone he could just _have_ ; she’d protest (he’d like that), and then try to hit him (not so much), but people, people are like plots of land. Sow an idea in their heads, and they’ll grow a seed into a garden, just give it time. With Dee - he estimates three months, tops. 

He pictures it (when he’s bored, when Mac’s not around and the pub’s empty, when his sister is mixing drinks and he hasn’t gotten laid in a month or so). Dee would leave scratches and bites _everywhere._ She’d scream (maybe his name, maybe insults -it depends). She’d go down on her knees (protesting, bitching, and he’d like it all the more for that, if her pupils dilated with arousal but her lips wrapped around the word _no_ ), and he’d have her against the wall, probably at the pub because he hates her apartment and she hates his (besides, Mac would hear.)

Sometimes he’ll find the idea mildly arousing. He thinks that maybe he should give it a try - it’s kind of a challenge. He has eyes, and Dee’s gotten sort of attractive ever since she stopped looking like an uncurable polio victim. There’s obviously the incest thing - but really, that makes it more interesting. More reasons she might say no. 

But the truth is straightforward. It’s best not to love someone you have sex with - it’s much better to like them. 

Dennis doesn’t like Dee at all. 

2\. _thou hast committed-_

He’s never actually killed anyone. He’s pretty sure Mac would be happy about that, something about sins in the eyes of the Lord (Dennis doesn’t really know, he started tuning out Mac’s religious crap in senior year). 

Not to say that he hasn’t come close. There’s been times...when Dee has the audacity to slight him, when no one will recognize his genius, when his coffee order doesn’t come through right, when they’re not turning a profit and it’s because the people Dennis associates with are so painstakingly _stupid…_ he thinks. Different ways. What it’d be like; a slip of arsenic here, in the tequila. Or more directly; a gun to the temple, a knife to the heart, just under the ribs, a two-handed grip on the throat. His fingers will twitch, and he’ll look around, gnaw his lip and contemplate. 

He killed kittens, when he was a kid. Not out of scientific interest, or because he hated them, or anything like that, really. Something in him just felt so raging _mad._ No one would listen, Frank and his mom were untouchable and the losers at his school weren’t worth his time, so he’d wrangle their small bodies into the dirt and wait for them to stop breathing. He’d have scratches on his wrists, dirt on his hands, but no one ever asked. Dennis got away with it. 

(Dennis could get away with everything, if he wanted to.)

(He always had dirt under his fucking fingernails, and they didn’t even _notice._ Dennis is _perfect_ \- it was his one fucking flaw, and no one even _knew._ )

He remembers it, when he’s had a particularly _fantastic_ day; what it feels like when the lights go out in their eyes. He thinks about doing it again. His hands pause on his knife, on a bottle, wondering what people look like when their insides are strewn about like Jackson Pollock paintings. 

He doesn’t do it, though. He doubts he ever will. 

Because here’s the thing about murder; it’s the one truly irrevocable marker of evil. People will forgive a lot for a redemption arc; robbery, fraud, addiction, incest, forgery, blasphemy, egocentrism, psychopathy, rape… but for some reason they draw the line at murder. 

Dennis still has the good majority of existence to look forward to. He’s got fucking _plans_ for his life: like hell he’s gonna spend the rest of it in a jail cell. 

Even if it means gritting his teeth. 

3 _. ...doth make cowards of us all._

Mac loves him. It's not something Dennis has ever questioned. It's the most obvious thing in the world. Dennis met Mac, and somewhere between sophomore and junior year, Mac fell in love with him. Dennis sees it everywhere; how he talks _(Dennis pay attention to me)_ , how he smiles (like Dennis is the only person in the world, like the rest of it's just white noise), how he always leans in, fingers on Dennis's arm, thighs just a bit too close. 

Dennis has thought about it (there's very little Dennis _hasn't_ thought about doing). Mac would gasp, wouldn't believe him, would say, _I'm straight dude, what are you_ doing, but he'd forget to protest as soon as Dennis dropped to his knees. Dennis would say; _say it Mac, scream my name like you scream God's._ He'd make Mac beg for it, until he was falling apart under Dennis's fingertips, until only Dennis could put him back together, until he'd said _I love you_ so much it hurt his throat and Dennis hadn't said a word back. He'd drag his fingers through Mac's hair, leaves bites and scratches on his neck, his chest, the insides of his wrists. Let the world know; _mine, and none of you can even_ think _of fucking touching_.

It would be so, so _easy._ He's had Mac wrapped around his finger for years now.

He doesn't know why he hasn't done it. He thinks about it (too much, all the time, when Mac sneaks a glance at him across the bar, when Mac downs a drink just a tad too fast, when Mac thinks Dennis isn't paying attention and he just _looks_ at him). All he'd have to do would be lean closer, make one of two comments, and he'd have his best friend. Just like that. It wouldn’t even take a day - maybe a few hours. 

But every time he tries something stops him. His hand falls halfway to meeting Mac's, he stops short of meeting Mac's gaze, he thinks about taking Mac's hand when they're at a restaurant, but he never does. 

He doesn't know why. His breath'll get stuck in his throat; his hands'll freeze up. (He hates it. It reminds him; fourteen years old, just got laid by the hottest teacher in the school, but he was too _stupid_ to even hit on her the next day, just kept his eyes down and his arms crossed. Mac would never start anything - he doesn’t have the courage. But Mac freezes him up all the same, makes his body say _stop,_ and Dennis has no idea why. It's intolerable. Mac is intolerable, some days. All days. Every single fucking moment. Dennis doesn’t know why he puts up with it.)

There are very few things Dennis doesn't do. There are even fewer things Dennis _can't_ do, but sleeping with Mac appears to be one of them. 

(He doesn't know why. There's some reason, he thinks, but it's slippery, impossible to grab a hold of.)

He doesn’t care, spends most of his time pushing it aside. If he can't figure it out, it's probably not worth knowing. 

**Author's Note:**

> 1 - John Milton, Paradise Lost. "Can it be a sin to know? Can it be death?”  
> 2 - Christopher Marlowe, The Jew of Malta. " 'Thou hast committed -' 'Fornication? But that was in another country, and besides, the wench is dead."  
> 3 - William Shakespeare, Hamlet. "Conscience doth make fools of us all."


End file.
